Ask, Tell, page 6
minimum. Part of me wants to please my father. The other
part of me, the one that’s cowardly, wants to be away from
the unpleasant atmosphere that’s been slowly filling my
house for the past few years. I didn’t even get to tell her my
carefully prepared story about wanting certain deployments
versus uncertain reserve call-backs. The moment I said
thinking about extending my contract, we started to fight.
I’m breaking the terms of our agreement.
I’m trying to keep a neutral facial expression when Keane
pushes through the door. Mitch and I slide our chairs back
and jump to attention. I speak first. “Colonel Keane, good
afternoon.” My posture is perfect. If only my father could
see me now. Slap me on a recruitment poster, boys.
She stops next to me. “Boyd, Fleischer. As you were.”
I relax my posture slightly. Her eye protection sits atop her
head and it seems so casual, like she’s just come inside
from being at the beach. Keane sets her earmuffs and
cleaning gear on the table. “How was your session?” The
question is directed at both of us, but she’s looking only at
Mitch. My stomach twists. Have I done something?
Mitch side-eyes me. “Very productive, ma’am.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.” Keane glances down at my
targets still folded on the table. She reaches for them,
unfolds and shuffles through each one. Keane finally looks at
me. “These are yours, Fleischer?”
“Yes ma’am.” I’m mortified about the fact that they are
marked so fastidiously with both date and time.
“Very good, Sabine. You should think about a
Marksmanship Badge or even competition.” She offers the
targets back to me.
I hold the paper in front of myself, as though I could use it
as a shield to stop my embarrassment escaping. “I’d never
thought of either, Colonel, but I’ll give it some thought.
Thank you.” The tips of my ears feel warm. Damn it. Mitch is
silent beside me and I know from his posture that he is
holding back laughter.
Keane picks up her things and inclines her head, giving
me an amused smile. “Enjoy your afternoon.” She walks
away with her cleaning case swinging in her hand, leaving
me to sit down and refold my targets. I am still very aware
of the heat of my ears.
Mitch lets out a deep chuckle. “I think she likes you. She
never mentioned my shootin’. Maybe I should keep all them
targets after all.” Mitch mock-pouts at me and puts his
cleaning things away. He closes the case with a loud click.
“Oh yeah, by the way, you got dirty gun grease on your
forehead, darlin’. Real smooth.”
Chapter Six
The mailroom should open at six, but this morning the
clerk is late. I’m taking a standing nap against the outside
wall, waiting with Mitch for mail handout. Last night was
nonstop surgery and I haven’t slept yet. The door swings
open and hits the wall beside me, startling me fully awake. I
stifle a yawn and step inside. “Fleischer, S.”
“Number?”
Automatically, I recite my ID number. The clerk rummages
for a minute then holds out a package, which will be from
my sister, and a small stack of letters banded together. He
glances down at the stack. “Flee-shur.”
Mitch sniggers. My eyebrows flick upward for a moment as
I stare at the clerk. Are you kidding me? I literally just
pronounced my name for you, you asshole. I give him a
tight smile and take my mail, resisting the urge to snatch it
up and shout Fleischer his face.
Mitch moves forward, his forearms resting on the counter.
His posture reminds me of someone trying to charm free
drinks from a bartender. “Boyd, M.” Mitch offers his number
without being asked. He turns to face me, giving me a slow
and exaggerated wink.
“Boyd!” The clerk hands Mitch a parcel. It is the same
every time we collect mail. No letters and just a monthly
parcel from either my sister or my mother. I rub my hand
across my stomach, as though I could dispel the awful
feeling building there. Mitch is exuberant. “Thank you,
adopted family!”
I glance at the package in his hand and force a grin.
“Bigger than mine, you family-stealing asshole.”
Mitch and I became friends in pre-med and both made
career choices with family in mind. Mine were to continue
tradition. His were an attempt to regain favor with his
parents, who disowned him at sixteen when he told them he
was gay. In the almost seventeen years I’ve known him, he
has had no contact with a blood relative.
We are long past dissecting his family’s motivations, yet I
never stop feeling a pang of sympathy when the only mail
he receives is from my family. It fills me with indignant
outrage that his cannot move past his sexuality to focus on
what a good, talented and kindhearted man he is. My family
latched onto Mitch quickly, and he them. It didn’t take long
until he was invited to our events, slotting in as though he
was born a Fleischer. Holidays are always spent with my
family and they never fail to gift him with something for his
birthday and Christmas.
Oma and Opa taught him German expletives. My sister
still tries to set him up with workmates who invariably turn
out to be straight. He watches ball games with my father
while my mother frets over him being single. When I think of
him being adopted by my loved ones, I feel humbled and
grateful for my family. They have been supportive of my
entire life and also embrace others who are gay.
Mitch is drumming his fingers on Jana’s package as we
walk back to our quarters, no doubt eager to open it and see
what goodies she has included. I tuck my package under an
arm so I can sort through my stack of letters. Mom, Mom,
Oma…Vic.
Vic. Weird. She loathes writing letters, preferring the
instant gratification of an email to the humble handwritten
page. Both of my mother’s envelopes feel thick, as usual.
There will be news articles from the local paper with her
humorous annotations on them. She will have included
recipe clippings, as though I could somehow make an apple
cinnamon Bundt cake here.
Mom’s letters read more like a journal of randomness, her
daily activities and gossip about the neighbors. I look
forward to them because they are so normal and full of
boring day-to-day things. We pause outside my room where
I shuffle the letters into a neat pile. Mitch stares at my
hands. “Is that—?”
“It’s nothing,” I interrupt, shoving Vic’s letter to the back. I
knock softly on the closed door to give my roommate a
chance to respond before bursting in on her.
“All good!” Amy calls from behind the closed door. Good
start, I’m not interrupting her napping or masturbating. She
is sitting cross-legged on her bed with a headset on, in the
middle of a call with her husband and young son. Amy lifts a
hand in silent greeting. Shit, I forgot it was her call time.
Mail will have to wait.
“Workout?” Mitch asks from the doorway. It’s not against
the rules for men and women to be in the same room if the
door is open or there is someone else present, but Mitch has
never stepped over the imaginary line across the doorway
of my room.
“Mhmm.” I leave my mail on the bed, give Amy an
apologetic smile and pull the door closed.
The gym is empty, which means we can talk without
filtering. I warm up while listening to Mitch prattle about his
upcoming rest and recreation leave, or R and R as we call it.
The running joke is that it’s actually I and I. Intoxication and
intercourse. The latter is particularly true for him.
He has a four-day pass to go to Qatar for where he will
meet up with a few guys from other units who share his
preferences. The location makes me uneasy because the
culture means they have to be careful. He seems
unconcerned, which makes me even more worried.
I feel strangely weak today and my only excuse is that I’m
tired. When I almost drop a warm-up set Mitch chastises me,
like some personal trainer who is intent on remodeling a
client. “Come on, Betty Spaghetti.” He settles the bar back
in the cups.
“How about you do some backflips for me, Mitch?” I
grumble at him, sitting up and wiping my face with the
bottom of my T-shirt.
He pouts. Mitch is far too burly to do any sort of gymnastic
activity. When I’m feeling particularly puckish, I do a few
casual roundoff back handsprings in front of him, digging
out my gymnastic training from when I was eleven and
interested in such things. In third year med, I offered to
teach him after we’d been drinking. The memory of his one
attempt at a flip always cheers me up. The stitches I put in
his eyebrow as he lay on the kitchen table in our tiny,
shared apartment didn’t even leave a scar. I should have
gone into plastic surgery.
“You’re cruel, Sabine, you know?” He adds another five
pounds on each side. Prick.
“I do.” I lie back down.
Mitch watches from above, ready to spot me if I wobble
again. “I say, Sabs, you and the Colonel looked mighty
friendly when I wandered past the wards the other day,” he
says slyly.
I falter midlift and have to work to push the bar all the
way up, my cheeks puffing with the effort. Thanks for the
distraction, buddy. “I didn’t see you.” I grunt the words out.
He gives me a knowing smile. “Of course you didn’t. You
were too busy. Checkin’ charts was it?”
“It’s not like that. She wanted an opinion.”
“About what? Whether her tits look good in her uniform?”
“Fuck off.” I push out another repetition, trying to ignore
the fluttering in my stomach. Colonel Keane is very
attractive and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it, so
long as I don’t give myself away. I can’t deny she makes me
feel strange, like the time I thought about shoplifting a
denim jacket in high school. It was wrong, but I still thought
about it.
Mitch won’t let it go. “I think it is like that. Don’t even try
telling me you ain’t ever thought about her. I know you’ve
had that little crush for a while now.”
It pleases him to hear me admit weakness. I frown up at
him. “You know I have. It’s not some stupid schoolgirl crush,
Mitch.” I’m worried. If Mitch saw something, then perhaps I
wasn’t wrong about her behavior earlier. Maybe I wasn’t
imagining it? I give myself a mental headshake. Mitch sees
what he wants to and so do you, Sabine. I finish my set with
quivering arms and stand beside the bench while Mitch adds
weights for himself.
It’s just that I respect and admire Keane’s capabilities as a
surgeon. I’m intrigued by the humor I’ve seen peeking out
from under her calm exterior. She is warm and caring and
sympathetic and you’re getting carried away with your
thoughts, Sabine. Everything is irrelevant anyway, because I
am not a cheater. Plus there’s the issue of her unknown
sexual preferences and the fact she wears a wedding ring.
Oh, and of course, that pesky thing called The Army and the
even peskier thing called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Apparently my face gives my thoughts away. Mitch gives
me a self-satisfied grin as he settles himself. “I see you got a
letter from Vic.”
I look around quickly, reassuring myself that we are still
alone. “Yes.”
“How’s it goin’?”
I’m not in the mood for a relationship dissection but
there’s no point lying or being evasive. He will drag it from
me eventually. “Not great. The usual, but something else is
off. Something different. I can’t figure out what it is.” I chew
my lip.
Mitch and I speak regularly about my relationship with Vic.
He knows how I feel that the distance between Vic and me
is expanding, as though we’re tugging on opposite ends of a
rubber band. We’re both just waiting for it to snap. The band
stretched slowly, almost imperceptibly, at first but now I
think the pressure is greater, the tension more obvious.
It’s taken us years to get to this point and my gut tells me
the longer we go on, the more inevitable our split is. It’s just
a feeling I have. One which refuses to go away. One I’ve had
for a while now. I lean on the cold metal of the press bar. “I
don’t know what to do about it.”
“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You work with
what you got, or put it away and start over.” He smiles,
seeming pleased with his analogy. “Now, get those arms off
my weights unless you want me to bench you too.”
After another forty-five minutes in the gym, Mitch decrees
it’s time for breakfast. Because we work around the clock,
the chow hall is always open. It is half full of people
scattered around the room. Mitch and I split. I walk straight
to the coffeepots to pour myself two small cups. If there was
a suggestion box, I would write bigger coffee mugs on a slip
of paper every single day. I add powdered whole milk and
stir listlessly. I would sacrifice a non-vital organ for fresh
milk. My colleagues tease me about putting milk instead of
creamer in my coffee, but it’s what I’ve always done.
The breakfast offerings are as uninspiring as ever. Bread
here is only edible if toasted but I refuse to eat the cold,
soggy toast that the mess staff leaves in piles for us. The
rotating track of the mass toaster accepts my two pieces of
whole wheat and I eat squishy grapes while I wait for my
fresh batch to be done.
Being still lets my mind wander and it inevitably returns to
the conversation I had with Vic the night before last. That
niggling feeling returns. The toast burns my fingers and I
grab a jar without checking what it is, smearing it
haphazardly. Chocolate spread. Ugh. I nearly toss it and
start over, but I’m anxious to get back to my room to read
my letters and open Jana’s package before I shower and
wait for incomings.
Amy is gone by the time I make it back to my room. Vic’s
is the obvious choice to read first. It’s almost a novelty. I
open the envelope and fish inside for the single piece of
paper, barely half a page of Vic’s awful penmanship. Her
written words always make me feel as though she is writing
in the dark after drinking a bottle of wine during an
earthquake. It’s something I tease her about and without fail
she responds with a quip about her handwriting reflecting
her artistic flair. I read the first line and my stomach muscles
tighten. I know what it is, but I didn’t expect it like this.
Oh God.
Chapter Seven
Dear Sabine,
There’s no easy way to say this and I don’t think there’s
any point in wasting time with platitudes or metaphors. I’m
seeing someone and I’m leaving you. I’m lonely and
unhappy and have been for a long while. I know you are too.
We can’t fix this. Not while you’re over there and I’m here. I
know you want to stay in the army and I can’t spend the
rest of my life by myself.
I’m sorry to hurt you, I do love you, but I need someone
with me. Call or email me if you want to talk things over. I’ll
leave your house and car keys in your sister’s mailbox along
with some other things for when you get back.
I’m taking Caesar and Brutus.
Come home safely,
Victoria xx
She may as well have addressed it Dear Jane. My heart is
drumming and I feel the churn of nausea. I bite down hard
on my lower lip as I read it again. Maybe I’m
misunderstanding her awful writing? No. It’s blunt and to the
point which is typical-Victoria style. Fuck. Why not call, or
email me?
The only reason I can think of for her sending a letter is
because she needed to create something to express herself.
Something concrete. If it’s on paper then it’s official. Fucking
hell, couldn’t she have waited a few months until I was
home and done it in person? I lean back against the wall,
